Lets assume that we employ some sort of "hand-wavium" cunning ploy to prevent the numbers being calculatable with any genuine certainty for all play styles, hence folk have ideas about what makes things 'good', and players can definintely tell which of their own characters abilities and equipment work better together, but no easy to download tools exist to provide a predefined path along which a character 'should' be developed in order to give whatever it is folk have decided they need. (yeah, hand-wavium, the most cunning of ploys)
You might as well ask what game someone would play if the sun were to rise in the west. You're asking what would happen if something that logically cannot happen were to happen anyway. If an average player has some vague idea of what works, then players will be able to reverse-engineer the formulas to a pretty high degree of accuracy.
You might be able to make the formulas complex enough that most players would be unable to understand them, but that would only mean that the handful of players who did understand the formulas had quite a large advantage.
If you thought that the direction the earth spins has an impact on the type of game played, then yeah you could ask that question. I beleive my question may (in your view) exist within an unlikely circumstance, but I feel the question was still valid. I notice you missed the question from my quote... and given that I provided an example (in my later post) of what would be achievable in a game were you dont know how much damage your really causing, I was hoping for a more informed response than simply repeating.. it wont work.
So I ask you again, if you didn't know for sure that you had killed your foe, would this be better or not? If your combat had an element of risk (due to lack of knowledge), would this be better or not?
Suppose that a mob's HP is random over a pretty broad interval. What's to stop a player from killing a hundred of them and then averaging?
If mobs come out of some fixed distribution, then the Strong Law of Large Numbers guarantees that the only things that could prevent players from calculating their damage by killing a lot of mobs and averaging are if either there are some mobs that they cannot kill or if expected amount of damage that the mobs would take to kill is infinite. On the former, it would be necessary to prevent players from knowing that they were unable to kill a mob even after they've fought it (as otherwise it's easy to discard them from the data), so merely putting in some completely invincible mobs in every single area of the game wouldn't work.
In order to prevent players from reverse engineering the formulas, you'd have to make the outcome of combat look completely random. That's completely random as in, if you get up and leave the room during combat, it doesn't make any noticeable difference. And if you do that, then figuring out that the outcome is completely random and doesn't depend on what players do in combat would itself constitute reverse-engineering the relevant formulas.
... As for the amount of damage you cause to something.... we must be able to see this harm and so be aware of apparently minor or major wounds and see/hear reactions from your opponent, again this is only perception, if you dont know that this creature can survive its head being chopped off you might well feel pretty confident, until it stands back up... wont this thing ever die. Better I think than ok one more shot... yeah, dead, easy. ...
Now, if I go back to the same area and the creature has respawned will it be the same strength as the first time I faced it? Or will it have completely random stats so an area that is pefectly safe one day will be a nightmare the next? Essentially, given experience with the game will I be able to tell what strength a particual mob is or will I have to just risk it that I might be able to take it every time?
I'm not planning on using spawning monsters, but the basic question remains... the idea was that each creature type was recognisable by your character as one they'd encountered before and so they'd have an approximation of their abilities. This would be based on racial and upon a value I didn't highlight previously, 'intimidation' and of course the individual creatures capabilities. Hence if you see a wolf, having previously fought a wolf you will assume it will be as capable as the last; this individual may be stronger or weaker but you'd discover that as you face them. However this wolf may be larger, blacker, frothing at the mouth, etc, and so appear more intimidating, this will act against you in the combat (another issue) but also have you assume greater capabilities (wrong or right). Its possible to present yourself as more intimidating this will provide advantage in combat against a foe with low morale until of course they realise you're all noise and show. (aside: as well as certain skills, intimidating appearance is something you can build into your character by careful selection of clothing, tatoos, etc)
In short, every time you face someone you have a risk that they are more powerful than you, but they will be in the same situation. The more skilled character will be more likely to recognise the abilities of others, and make better assumptions, plus be more likely to survive long enough to learn their opponents abilities and then do a runner (if necessary).
I know it sounds rough but the characters have other aspects working for them, explaining the whole thing is the task of a great many more posts... The basic point is that combat is dangerous, even when you really are the greatest warrior in the city, you dont know for sure. Confidence is important, not only for your character but for the player, dont forget your opposing player is also worried you'll be superior.
So is fear interesting or does it just sound annoying??
Suppose that a mob's HP is random over a pretty broad interval. What's to stop a player from killing a hundred of them and then averaging? If mobs come out of some fixed distribution, then the Strong Law of Large Numbers guarantees that the only things that could prevent players from calculating their damage by killing a lot of mobs and averaging are if either there are some mobs that they cannot kill or if expected amount of damage that the mobs would take to kill is infinite. On the former, it would be necessary to prevent players from knowing that they were unable to kill a mob even after they've fought it (as otherwise it's easy to discard them from the data), so merely putting in some completely invincible mobs in every single area of the game wouldn't work. In order to prevent players from reverse engineering the formulas, you'd have to make the outcome of combat look completely random. That's completely random as in, if you get up and leave the room during combat, it doesn't make any noticeable difference. And if you do that, then figuring out that the outcome is completely random and doesn't depend on what players do in combat would itself constitute reverse-engineering the relevant formulas.
Thanks for completely ignoring what I asked and continuing the 'its impossible vein'.
So the 'mobs' have a HP, two assumptiions about the nature of the game, but lets run with them...
Killing a hundred and averaging what? The time it takes to kill?? Yep, you could do that given enough time and 'mobs'
So you know how long it takes to kill with one method of combat (one of a great many), so try again (after finding more roughly similar 'mobs' and again and again each time with a different skill used. Although I'd not recommend using just one skill as they'll notice this and try to counter, or simply run away as you've slaughtered so many by now. Of course this will affect your timings. You can encounter mobs that will fight as a group and almost certainly spell your doom, unless they are very weak, and again they'd scatter and run unless cornered and then they'd fight all the harder... So you could try using a group of you but this will further complicate the numbers. Not sure why mobs would have to be invicible, all they need do is defeat you, thats not invicible, its just you're weaker. You will be aware that you injured them, well they bleed and scream, so I assume they're injured.
Its not random, its just more complex. I'm not saying its going to be easy for me to implement within an MMO, its worked on paper, but I'll see... the question was, would you be upset if you didn't know how much damage you did an opponent other than what you can percieve as their injuries... still waiting for an answer.
A new game that is in open beta has no numbers really. It doesn't say the numbers when u hit or get hit. it only shows health bars, mana bar, no numbers. It's actually quite nice. You can open up your char page to check your mana and health tho. But otherwise no numbers, and it's awesome. I don't want to say the game unlesss someone want's to know because i think i've posted a few times saying the name and i don't want to keep posting the name of a game and be a troll. I never realised how much better mmo's are without theorycrafting.
Originally posted by ianonmmorpg Its not random, its just more complex. I'm not saying its going to be easy for me to implement within an MMO, its worked on paper, but I'll see... the question was, would you be upset if you didn't know how much damage you did an opponent other than what you can percieve as their injuries... still waiting for an answer.
Your attempts at throwing randomness into the system don't make a bit of difference in whether it's possible to reverse-engineer the formulas. All that they do is make it take longer. You can say, in this case mobs will do one thing, in this other case mobs will do something else, and so forth. But what mobs do will either be completely predictable, or at worst, drawn from a distribution that makes it possible to take a bunch of trials and average. You're trying to ask what would happen if something that is impossible and logically contradictory could be done, and the question doesn't make sense. The only thing that would stop people from reverse engineering pretty good approximations is if no one inclined to reverse-engineer formulas liked your game much.
But to answer your nonsensical question anyway, no I wouldn't like your game, because if it's impractical to decipher formulas, the outcome has to be so random as for the skill of the player to scarcely matter. I like games based more on player skill than on level, gear, or dumb luck (as opposed to probabilistic outcomes that players can manipulate).
Originally posted by ianonmmorpg Its not random, its just more complex. I'm not saying its going to be easy for me to implement within an MMO, its worked on paper, but I'll see... the question was, would you be upset if you didn't know how much damage you did an opponent other than what you can percieve as their injuries... still waiting for an answer.
Your attempts at throwing randomness into the system don't make a bit of difference ...
But to answer your nonsensical question anyway, no I wouldn't like your game, because if it's impractical to decipher formulas, the outcome has to be so random as for the skill of the player to scarcely matter. I like games based more on player skill than on level, gear, or dumb luck (as opposed to probabilistic outcomes that players can manipulate).
Its not random. Wow, how many times must I say that. It says such in the quote. As I keep saying, its more complex not random. The system doesn't use Hit points and so calculating hit points (or health points) is impossible. As such you can only percieve odds to hit in a given situation and the apparent injuries inflicted.
The odds to hit are based upon your characters stance, equipment modifiers (heavy amour, big shield, light weapon etc) and the actual attack and counter attack actions selected versus the same from your opponent. As the weight of your weapon will effect one attack form more than another, the size of the shield play a larger part in one defence form than another, the nature of your stance and the level of skill in all of the above (skills can be employed to tweek your abilities with arms and armour as well as every action)... I would argue that it is very difficult to ensure that any two engagements are the same, and therefore rather difficult to deduce reliable stats. Although you will quickly learn the nature of your own abilities and even those of common enemies, and so how to deal with them most effectively, you will find this difficult to apply to the game in general or any other character as so much customisation is possible and much of each encounter is not specifically revealed.
You may start a fight by defending youself against repeated attacks, yep defending yourself if thats what you choose to do, and its not a bad idea when facing a new foe, you'll see your character parry with sword and shield (assuming so equiped), you'll see them dodge and weave (although I've not explained the command interface lets just take it as read that you can selected such options). The odds of success in each of these events is based upon a versus test of melee skills modified by equipment and stance each modified by skill set for both you and your opponent. Having weathered this inital attack you decide its worth trying to get some strikes against your opponent, but aren't yet willing to drop your gaurd (they're still throwing plenty of attacks), so while maintaining your defensive stance and primary defence action you select to employ a counter attack action, now while parrying and dodging your character is looking to make a counter attack against your enemy when the opportunity arrises. After maybe a minute of such largely defensive work you realise your opponent is really not up to this combat and was simply making a good show of it hoping to scare you off, the few counter strikes have obviously reduced his morale and he's starting to waver, his attacks are less and less impressive and its becomming very easy to counter him; its time to finish this, you switch to a more aggressive stance and while maintaining an eye on defence you start throwing in some good attacks. Your enemies morale collapses and hes now backing away weakly defending himself and making no attempts to attack... indeed if not for his armour he'd probaly be dead by now, he's bleeding and it appears his shield arm is injured. Yep, he's trying to run for it, oh dear what a shame, due to your aggressive stance and attack actions you deal him a couple of nasty blows to his exposed back and with a shower of blood and a scream he's down.
Visible to you is your morale and a vague estimate of his morale (judged by his apparent offensive/defensive stance- hence could be a lie). You'll know your injuries and any apparent injuries to him (if he's 'not mortal' these may be irrelevant) and will see them being caused. You would of recieved clues about his skill with his current equipment (sword and shield) although this could be him attempting to mislead you or it might just be that he's picked upo the wrong equipment and next time you meet him he's got the right gear for his skills. You'll know about a couple of your other stats that finish of the combat system, but wont have any perception of his, although these stats will be obvious when they drop below a certain level as he'll be in trouble.
Now your right the system relies heavily upon levels, not class level but individual skill levels, and the combinations of skills that the player can employ to define their combat styles. The system permits the player to make all the decisions but is not a twitch combat system, you have a target lock and the 'odds of success' are based upon character skills and of course what the players choose to actually do in the engagement. I'd argue that player skill is vital with so many options and a 'movie-fight-scene' orientated combat system, however it does not relay upon the player having excellent hand-eye-coord, it is an RPG not an FPS. Some will hate that idea, fair enough, some wont.
I'm not trying to make a game that is based around PvP combat, and therefore a psuedo FPS game, its an RPG that is based around socio-political systems rather than combat; of course being a fantasy environment with full PvP I expect a lot of combat and so I wanted a decent feeling combat system, hence the movie style design. As its a hybrid of a couple of my previous games I know I've got some testing to do, but that doesn't automatically invalidate the design.
A new game that is in open beta has no numbers really. It doesn't say the numbers when u hit or get hit. it only shows health bars, mana bar, no numbers. It's actually quite nice. You can open up your char page to check your mana and health tho. But otherwise no numbers, and it's awesome. I don't want to say the game unlesss someone want's to know because i think i've posted a few times saying the name and i don't want to keep posting the name of a game and be a troll. I never realised how much better mmo's are without theorycrafting.
Maybe others will also be surprised how much fun a little less fact and a little more risk can provide a game.
The complications you're adding are not meaningful barriers to reverse engineering the formulas. If you can get as much data as you need, there's no meaningful theoretical difference between running a regression on two variables, twenty, or two hundred.
The complexity threshold that it would take to make the outcome look completely random to an average player is well shy of what it would take to prevent a serious theorycrafter from reverse-engineering your formulas.
In Puzzle Pirates, the only feedback that a player gets on how he's doing is his average performance over the last three minutes. And it doesn't even give a precise rating on that, but only a fairly broad performance range. Even so, the only real barrier to picking apart the formulas was that it didn't matter to those who could, because if in the top performance range, it didn't matter how far into the range you were, and those who could reverse-engineer the formulas could generally get into the top performance range without needing to know precise formulas.
The complications you're adding are not meaningful barriers to reverse engineering the formulas. If you can get as much data as you need, there's no meaningful theoretical difference between running a regression on two variables, twenty, or two hundred. The complexity threshold that it would take to make the outcome look completely random to an average player is well shy of what it would take to prevent a serious theorycrafter from reverse-engineering your formulas. ...
The 'complications' I've added are not designed to prevent theorycrafting, they are there as it's part of the movie combat experience (well I'll see if that's how it works at full speed), the fact that they make thoerycrafting more difficult was in my view a bonus that drew me to this thread. If you wish to undertake the task then of course thats up to you, and if proves useful to you then you can either share this information (if it's easy enough for others to impliment) and so we'll see theorycrafting in this game as in all other games (as you say), or you wont, in which case we wont see so much. It either happens or not. If someone wants to put enough effort into it I'm sure anything is possible. To be honest I'm out of practice with my higher tier math as its been a while since Uni (although its not the math thats hard, it'll be trying to collect the data given the lack of reproductability) and so I dont care to do the job myself just to try and make it harder, like I said the point wasn't to prevent theorycrafting.
I'm all for the removal of theorycrafting from MMO's...
Although I realize that I'm in the minority (based upon the low proportion of "RP" servers versus general rulesets), I prefer to be immersed in the game world, rather than worrying about DPS parses. I'd rather experiment with different weapons, armors, and tactics to determine on my own which is the most effective in a given situation. I'd prefer a more "subjective" representation of damage - louder crunches and grunts from hitting the opponent (or getting hit), visual cues (scars, blood), etc. At worst I'd prefer to see only things like "you hit your opponent squarely" versus "you deal an ineffectual glancing blow".
I don't even watch the combat output screen in the MMO's I play, though most of them put it in your HUD anyway and make it impossible to miss...
I can see the point you are making however the current methods to acquire the data is not giving the whole picture anyway. what may be better is the developer makes the analysis software and those that want the data can read it and those the do not give a shit can not be bombarded by a wall of text every kill.
The e-peen wanting to see his DPS can also see how many deaths he took how much the healer had to heal, who they were healing and all the other things that happened. As it stands now the phrases are not showing the real picture just giving a few e-peens a bigger e-go.
Comments
You might as well ask what game someone would play if the sun were to rise in the west. You're asking what would happen if something that logically cannot happen were to happen anyway. If an average player has some vague idea of what works, then players will be able to reverse-engineer the formulas to a pretty high degree of accuracy.
You might be able to make the formulas complex enough that most players would be unable to understand them, but that would only mean that the handful of players who did understand the formulas had quite a large advantage.
If you thought that the direction the earth spins has an impact on the type of game played, then yeah you could ask that question. I beleive my question may (in your view) exist within an unlikely circumstance, but I feel the question was still valid. I notice you missed the question from my quote... and given that I provided an example (in my later post) of what would be achievable in a game were you dont know how much damage your really causing, I was hoping for a more informed response than simply repeating.. it wont work.
So I ask you again, if you didn't know for sure that you had killed your foe, would this be better or not? If your combat had an element of risk (due to lack of knowledge), would this be better or not?
Suppose that a mob's HP is random over a pretty broad interval. What's to stop a player from killing a hundred of them and then averaging?
If mobs come out of some fixed distribution, then the Strong Law of Large Numbers guarantees that the only things that could prevent players from calculating their damage by killing a lot of mobs and averaging are if either there are some mobs that they cannot kill or if expected amount of damage that the mobs would take to kill is infinite. On the former, it would be necessary to prevent players from knowing that they were unable to kill a mob even after they've fought it (as otherwise it's easy to discard them from the data), so merely putting in some completely invincible mobs in every single area of the game wouldn't work.
In order to prevent players from reverse engineering the formulas, you'd have to make the outcome of combat look completely random. That's completely random as in, if you get up and leave the room during combat, it doesn't make any noticeable difference. And if you do that, then figuring out that the outcome is completely random and doesn't depend on what players do in combat would itself constitute reverse-engineering the relevant formulas.
Now, if I go back to the same area and the creature has respawned will it be the same strength as the first time I faced it? Or will it have completely random stats so an area that is pefectly safe one day will be a nightmare the next? Essentially, given experience with the game will I be able to tell what strength a particual mob is or will I have to just risk it that I might be able to take it every time?
I'm not planning on using spawning monsters, but the basic question remains... the idea was that each creature type was recognisable by your character as one they'd encountered before and so they'd have an approximation of their abilities. This would be based on racial and upon a value I didn't highlight previously, 'intimidation' and of course the individual creatures capabilities. Hence if you see a wolf, having previously fought a wolf you will assume it will be as capable as the last; this individual may be stronger or weaker but you'd discover that as you face them. However this wolf may be larger, blacker, frothing at the mouth, etc, and so appear more intimidating, this will act against you in the combat (another issue) but also have you assume greater capabilities (wrong or right). Its possible to present yourself as more intimidating this will provide advantage in combat against a foe with low morale until of course they realise you're all noise and show. (aside: as well as certain skills, intimidating appearance is something you can build into your character by careful selection of clothing, tatoos, etc)
In short, every time you face someone you have a risk that they are more powerful than you, but they will be in the same situation. The more skilled character will be more likely to recognise the abilities of others, and make better assumptions, plus be more likely to survive long enough to learn their opponents abilities and then do a runner (if necessary).
I know it sounds rough but the characters have other aspects working for them, explaining the whole thing is the task of a great many more posts... The basic point is that combat is dangerous, even when you really are the greatest warrior in the city, you dont know for sure. Confidence is important, not only for your character but for the player, dont forget your opposing player is also worried you'll be superior.
So is fear interesting or does it just sound annoying??
Thanks for completely ignoring what I asked and continuing the 'its impossible vein'.
So the 'mobs' have a HP, two assumptiions about the nature of the game, but lets run with them...
Killing a hundred and averaging what? The time it takes to kill?? Yep, you could do that given enough time and 'mobs'
So you know how long it takes to kill with one method of combat (one of a great many), so try again (after finding more roughly similar 'mobs' and again and again each time with a different skill used. Although I'd not recommend using just one skill as they'll notice this and try to counter, or simply run away as you've slaughtered so many by now. Of course this will affect your timings. You can encounter mobs that will fight as a group and almost certainly spell your doom, unless they are very weak, and again they'd scatter and run unless cornered and then they'd fight all the harder... So you could try using a group of you but this will further complicate the numbers. Not sure why mobs would have to be invicible, all they need do is defeat you, thats not invicible, its just you're weaker. You will be aware that you injured them, well they bleed and scream, so I assume they're injured.
Its not random, its just more complex. I'm not saying its going to be easy for me to implement within an MMO, its worked on paper, but I'll see... the question was, would you be upset if you didn't know how much damage you did an opponent other than what you can percieve as their injuries... still waiting for an answer.
A new game that is in open beta has no numbers really. It doesn't say the numbers when u hit or get hit. it only shows health bars, mana bar, no numbers. It's actually quite nice. You can open up your char page to check your mana and health tho. But otherwise no numbers, and it's awesome. I don't want to say the game unlesss someone want's to know because i think i've posted a few times saying the name and i don't want to keep posting the name of a game and be a troll. I never realised how much better mmo's are without theorycrafting.
Your attempts at throwing randomness into the system don't make a bit of difference in whether it's possible to reverse-engineer the formulas. All that they do is make it take longer. You can say, in this case mobs will do one thing, in this other case mobs will do something else, and so forth. But what mobs do will either be completely predictable, or at worst, drawn from a distribution that makes it possible to take a bunch of trials and average. You're trying to ask what would happen if something that is impossible and logically contradictory could be done, and the question doesn't make sense. The only thing that would stop people from reverse engineering pretty good approximations is if no one inclined to reverse-engineer formulas liked your game much.
But to answer your nonsensical question anyway, no I wouldn't like your game, because if it's impractical to decipher formulas, the outcome has to be so random as for the skill of the player to scarcely matter. I like games based more on player skill than on level, gear, or dumb luck (as opposed to probabilistic outcomes that players can manipulate).
Your attempts at throwing randomness into the system don't make a bit of difference ...
But to answer your nonsensical question anyway, no I wouldn't like your game, because if it's impractical to decipher formulas, the outcome has to be so random as for the skill of the player to scarcely matter. I like games based more on player skill than on level, gear, or dumb luck (as opposed to probabilistic outcomes that players can manipulate).
Its not random. Wow, how many times must I say that. It says such in the quote. As I keep saying, its more complex not random. The system doesn't use Hit points and so calculating hit points (or health points) is impossible. As such you can only percieve odds to hit in a given situation and the apparent injuries inflicted.
The odds to hit are based upon your characters stance, equipment modifiers (heavy amour, big shield, light weapon etc) and the actual attack and counter attack actions selected versus the same from your opponent. As the weight of your weapon will effect one attack form more than another, the size of the shield play a larger part in one defence form than another, the nature of your stance and the level of skill in all of the above (skills can be employed to tweek your abilities with arms and armour as well as every action)... I would argue that it is very difficult to ensure that any two engagements are the same, and therefore rather difficult to deduce reliable stats. Although you will quickly learn the nature of your own abilities and even those of common enemies, and so how to deal with them most effectively, you will find this difficult to apply to the game in general or any other character as so much customisation is possible and much of each encounter is not specifically revealed.
You may start a fight by defending youself against repeated attacks, yep defending yourself if thats what you choose to do, and its not a bad idea when facing a new foe, you'll see your character parry with sword and shield (assuming so equiped), you'll see them dodge and weave (although I've not explained the command interface lets just take it as read that you can selected such options). The odds of success in each of these events is based upon a versus test of melee skills modified by equipment and stance each modified by skill set for both you and your opponent. Having weathered this inital attack you decide its worth trying to get some strikes against your opponent, but aren't yet willing to drop your gaurd (they're still throwing plenty of attacks), so while maintaining your defensive stance and primary defence action you select to employ a counter attack action, now while parrying and dodging your character is looking to make a counter attack against your enemy when the opportunity arrises. After maybe a minute of such largely defensive work you realise your opponent is really not up to this combat and was simply making a good show of it hoping to scare you off, the few counter strikes have obviously reduced his morale and he's starting to waver, his attacks are less and less impressive and its becomming very easy to counter him; its time to finish this, you switch to a more aggressive stance and while maintaining an eye on defence you start throwing in some good attacks. Your enemies morale collapses and hes now backing away weakly defending himself and making no attempts to attack... indeed if not for his armour he'd probaly be dead by now, he's bleeding and it appears his shield arm is injured. Yep, he's trying to run for it, oh dear what a shame, due to your aggressive stance and attack actions you deal him a couple of nasty blows to his exposed back and with a shower of blood and a scream he's down.
Visible to you is your morale and a vague estimate of his morale (judged by his apparent offensive/defensive stance- hence could be a lie). You'll know your injuries and any apparent injuries to him (if he's 'not mortal' these may be irrelevant) and will see them being caused. You would of recieved clues about his skill with his current equipment (sword and shield) although this could be him attempting to mislead you or it might just be that he's picked upo the wrong equipment and next time you meet him he's got the right gear for his skills. You'll know about a couple of your other stats that finish of the combat system, but wont have any perception of his, although these stats will be obvious when they drop below a certain level as he'll be in trouble.
Now your right the system relies heavily upon levels, not class level but individual skill levels, and the combinations of skills that the player can employ to define their combat styles. The system permits the player to make all the decisions but is not a twitch combat system, you have a target lock and the 'odds of success' are based upon character skills and of course what the players choose to actually do in the engagement. I'd argue that player skill is vital with so many options and a 'movie-fight-scene' orientated combat system, however it does not relay upon the player having excellent hand-eye-coord, it is an RPG not an FPS. Some will hate that idea, fair enough, some wont.
I'm not trying to make a game that is based around PvP combat, and therefore a psuedo FPS game, its an RPG that is based around socio-political systems rather than combat; of course being a fantasy environment with full PvP I expect a lot of combat and so I wanted a decent feeling combat system, hence the movie style design. As its a hybrid of a couple of my previous games I know I've got some testing to do, but that doesn't automatically invalidate the design.
Maybe others will also be surprised how much fun a little less fact and a little more risk can provide a game.
The complications you're adding are not meaningful barriers to reverse engineering the formulas. If you can get as much data as you need, there's no meaningful theoretical difference between running a regression on two variables, twenty, or two hundred.
The complexity threshold that it would take to make the outcome look completely random to an average player is well shy of what it would take to prevent a serious theorycrafter from reverse-engineering your formulas.
In Puzzle Pirates, the only feedback that a player gets on how he's doing is his average performance over the last three minutes. And it doesn't even give a precise rating on that, but only a fairly broad performance range. Even so, the only real barrier to picking apart the formulas was that it didn't matter to those who could, because if in the top performance range, it didn't matter how far into the range you were, and those who could reverse-engineer the formulas could generally get into the top performance range without needing to know precise formulas.
The 'complications' I've added are not designed to prevent theorycrafting, they are there as it's part of the movie combat experience (well I'll see if that's how it works at full speed), the fact that they make thoerycrafting more difficult was in my view a bonus that drew me to this thread. If you wish to undertake the task then of course thats up to you, and if proves useful to you then you can either share this information (if it's easy enough for others to impliment) and so we'll see theorycrafting in this game as in all other games (as you say), or you wont, in which case we wont see so much. It either happens or not. If someone wants to put enough effort into it I'm sure anything is possible. To be honest I'm out of practice with my higher tier math as its been a while since Uni (although its not the math thats hard, it'll be trying to collect the data given the lack of reproductability) and so I dont care to do the job myself just to try and make it harder, like I said the point wasn't to prevent theorycrafting.
I'm all for the removal of theorycrafting from MMO's...
Although I realize that I'm in the minority (based upon the low proportion of "RP" servers versus general rulesets), I prefer to be immersed in the game world, rather than worrying about DPS parses. I'd rather experiment with different weapons, armors, and tactics to determine on my own which is the most effective in a given situation. I'd prefer a more "subjective" representation of damage - louder crunches and grunts from hitting the opponent (or getting hit), visual cues (scars, blood), etc. At worst I'd prefer to see only things like "you hit your opponent squarely" versus "you deal an ineffectual glancing blow".
I don't even watch the combat output screen in the MMO's I play, though most of them put it in your HUD anyway and make it impossible to miss...
I can see the point you are making however the current methods to acquire the data is not giving the whole picture anyway. what may be better is the developer makes the analysis software and those that want the data can read it and those the do not give a shit can not be bombarded by a wall of text every kill.
The e-peen wanting to see his DPS can also see how many deaths he took how much the healer had to heal, who they were healing and all the other things that happened. As it stands now the phrases are not showing the real picture just giving a few e-peens a bigger e-go.